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Since they were less than half-finished

Yeah the idea that I could make a point in 30 minutes and less than a thousand words seems crazy to me. Haven’t done that shit since undergrad, the early part of undergrad. That was one cool thing about my Masters, there were NO exams. Why would you give Masters literature students exams to make sure they were doing the reading? The point of the degree was doing the fucking reading.

My first thought for my lunchtime blog (which a salad only take so long to eat and I get an unpaid hour so you better believe I refuse to work for free during my lunch break so strap in for these) today was to talk about how the only people I have if I were to compose a list of friends, are the following:
1) Current coworker friend – the one I get lunch with on Friday. So sadly, no Friday lunch blogs
2) Long time best friend/MOH from wedding – the one who moved somewhat far away (4 hour drive) but is still close friend but at other times i feel like we’ve grown irrevocably distant at other times I’m like well she does still make an effort to see me when she can and it’s not her fault I’m poor as fuck and can never afford to visit (if you knew the cities we lived in my going to her instead of the opposite would make a lot of sense except when she comes back to visit her parents, still in the town we both were born in/grew up in about two hours in an opposite direction)
3) Female grad school friend – there’s only the one, really. She’s the only non-male person from grad school I ever spent time with outside of class or going out to the bar after class. That was always fun. I think that’s probably the best part, is those memories. Of course R is in a lot of them but despite that, they’re good memories. There were two other girls I liked from grad school, I tried to hang out with each of them once but it didn’t work out and I never tried again (classic me). Let’s call them the Indian one and the blonde one, if I ever need to refer back. Which, maybe. The blonde one actually comes up in an interesting story I’m not telling right now.
4) Former coworker from Terrible retail job #3 (circa 2012-2015) – big problem with her though…we were those kind of friends who only hung out with a third person as a buffer, always the same third person (a different coworker from this same store). Now our third has moved to Kentucky so this person and I will never chill now. I mention her because she does invite my husband and I to a Halloween party every year (female grad school friend always invites us on New Years Eve, which is good because it SUCKS not having New Years plans, you feel so fucking lame) and I see her at her workplace (a different chain pet store) when I go to buy cat food, because I refuse to patronize my former workplace, I seriously HATED my life when i was there. It sucked. No apologies for the truth. But I guess there were a few good coworkers.
5) Three pet store friends – okay these are the ones I worked with for a varied 3-7 years at a family owned pet store chain. All three of them are now having their second kid, living in their home town. One is a preschool teacher and I swear to fuck she’s never had a hard day in her life. She’s very nice, and she was kind to me a few times when NO ONE else was. But sometimes I’m like *scoff* I’d be happy if my life was just a succession of dreams coming true and HUGE/constant familial love and support TOO. But that’s just my inner bitter bitch. I know. I just can’t make it leave. Another of this friend trio is a secretary at a doctor’s office. Her sister got her the no-college-degree-required job, which is good because this friend failed out of one semester of community college then never tried again. The third friend works as a secretary at a veterinarian. She’s married to a guy she dated in high school (oh wait, that’s also true of preschool teacher friend, like straight up high school sweethearts. like. what?) and had to take an extra semester to graduate from high school. I guess the way I’m talking about them makes me seem like a condescending cunt. Again. I know. Maybe I’m just jealous that they’re having this like super normal, stereotypical life and that’s what we’ve been programmed to want, and like I should feel like the odd one out but I seriously would NOT want their lives for anything. I guess because if I picture having stayed in my hometown and having kids when everyone else started doing it (I swear that’s why some people have kids, because their friends are and they don’t want to feel left out/behind) like…I AM NOT exposing any children I have to my dad. My mom, of course, my brother, eh, I wouldn’t trust him with their lives but he’s not like a horrible person. He’s just..like you know a heroin addict and selfish like a fucking three year old, always has been don’t say it’s the drugs. I knew that boy was fucked from the beginning. Probably something our dad did. Well probably definitely that. And you know what, three pet store friends all have normal, healthy, happy relationships with their parents. Vet secretary friend’s mom is REALLY proactive in her kid’s lives too. Like she had wicked bad postpartum depression after her first kid, so for like two months after she brought her baby home her mom came over and cooked them dinner because my friend was so depressed she could barely stand to get out of bed to breastfeed. And this is NOT me saying anything negative about postpartum because I KNOW it is REAL and scary, this isn’t that. This is me being self-centered and pointing out to myself that if I were in this scenario, I would NOT have a mother coming over and cooking us dinner every night for eight weeks. Especially not my mother. And I know to a lot of people it’s stupid but I think about how if I got pregnant right now…I don’t even think I would get to have my mom at my baby shower….or she’d had to lie and sneak around. I don’t know it’s just so fucked up. I just ignore it and go with the temporary solution, you know like Ma taught. I email her every day. I make it part of my “must get done as soon as I get home OR ELSE” list. It obviously has to be sent during her workday for her to see it. So, even though babies and baby things are SO cute…eh….I feel like my SHITTY work and school schedule ruined wedding planning for me…do I have to let my shitty family situation ruin kids for me? Plus like…80% of the time I don’t think I want children but am I just thinking that because I know I have time to change my mind? And changes happen, you can feel differently than you did three years ago it’s not the craziest thing ever. I’m not talking like about your lover, I mean like…about where you want to live or what kind of job you want to have.

That’s it. Those are ALL of my friends. Then, the only other people with any sort of connection to me are my husband’s relatives. And honestly I doubt most of them care for me. Which, okay, sure, my husband and I did get into a HUGE fight at the family reunion….because we were both way drunk and coming down from snorting Adderall. We didn’t get into the fight in front of anyone…but okay they’re REALLY conservative, so because we weren’t married I had to share a hotel room with his female cousins….so when I went outside to have a screaming conversation with my husband, they noticed I was gone. They were pretty weird about asking where I was…maybe they thought we’d snuck off to have sex. if only. And there were other times at this same reunion that we were just shitfaced. But idk. I try to be nice. But being around those people makes me want to abuse prescription drugs. I can’t explain it except to say that it feels, being around them, exactly like being around the church environment I was in as a kid because I got sent to private school because we lived in a shitty enough area to have shitty public schools. It’s the same exact denomination and predominant cultural mix (mostly German with other white western European races sprinkled gingerly throughout) so it’s extra creepy for me. But it makes sense, because my husband is a bit of the goofball/black sheep (he lost his shit when he was wasted at the last reunion we went to, he made his kid nephew cry. It was a shitshow. A SHITSHOW) so why would they not feel like he’d married some drunken slutty trashy ghetto girl. Idk how they reconcile the positives about me.

Which, also I thought of this between lunch and leaving work (AKA my unproductive time), I know I seem like I’m obsessed with my appearance. I guess it’s kind of true, but there’s also like a lot of other things I’m more obsessed with. I’m more into my cat Oscar. He is the best. I’ve had him for 12 years now, so it’s not hard to pinpoint why the emotional attachment it there. I honestly am very grateful and happy to have had him be part of my life through some TOUGH fucking times/transitions. You can make fun of me for being so weird about a cat, do your worst I’m sure I’ve heard it, but NOTHING has been the same over those years, not my virginity status, number of lovers, boyfriends, home, city of dwelling job, marital status, college-graduate-level status, hair color, car, level of interaction with parents, ALL of it has changed drastically over the years. I’ve guess I’ve always thought of myself as a “pretty writer” then I would draw a carat with “smart” interjected between those two words. That’s me. To a T.

So, honestly, when I picture some future book release party, I have such a short guest list it’s humiliating. I guess all of my friends would have a plus one, but that’s it. But those are the only women I know whom I can stand.

Wait okay, I should mention that best friend has a twin, so by some odd default I’ve remained friends with her twin, the twin was a bridesmaid in my wedding and to this day I’m impressed she pulled through. She isn’t known for doing that. BUT I at least personally acknowledge that we wouldn’t have any contact at all if I weren’t such good friends with her twin sister. I do like her as a separate person and everything, but I just felt like post high school she was kind of too busy making/having new friends rather than trying to keep up with me, from the 8th grade. But I try not to take it personally. Best friend is by far much more stubborn a human being I think that’s why we’re such good friends, the things we have in common are what molded our personalities the most. Or so I’ve observed thus far.

I want to go on, for you can see that I’m lonely. But who would read this far?

No matter, I suppose. Just like anything else. I think when I stopped thinking in absolutes, that’s when the nihilistic spirit really set in, but in a much lighter way than that word connotates. Like I’ve coined before, I’m a cynical optimist (ex: at least the proverbial half-empty-half-full glass isn’t completely empty). You acknowledge the shitty, shitty realities of your life…but you do it in whatever sarcastic or fucked up manner you need to. Express yourself, bitch. Me? I drink (mostly beer but I do like vodka now and again) I smoke constant weed. Like constant. I don’t even want to talk about the full depths of this shit. I painted for awhile but then the tedium started outweighing the joy, like things do when their novelty wears off. Same with freestyle cross-stitching and jewelry making. I think I just like hobbies that are aesthetically pleasing to shop for. I write…obviously. This word press is just for when I don’t feel like working on actual work. Because…idk I guess this is probably what people feel like when they diet and exercise regularly, but for me it’s mental relief through writing. Like literally headache pain relief because I’m not repressing ALL the things. That’s why these are so long. Like literally the one worry I’ve never had is running out of shit to say. Sometimes I’m like what if I can’t come up with another book idea after this first one? I mean I can try and draw it out into a series. But. Idk.

I certainly don’t believe in the muses, but my inspiration certainly comes and goes. It has never not been this way. Like I said, I’d say certainly by age ten I was writing full novels. In the 8th grade I sent one into a publisher and they said they wanted to print it, but I was convinced it was just a money scam so I don’t even think to look into it further. But honestly….I was writing 100-300 page murder mystery novels in the 7th and 8th grade. I feel like I should’ve been more encouraged or some shit. But in my dad’s eyes, not being actively discouraged is the same as being encouraged. From what I take it his dad was one mean motherfucker. Maybe the people who read them and said they liked them were only humoring me. Who knows. They’re long lost either way.

Well, over the course of this composure, I’ve grown quite drunk (can you tell?) so I seriously need to go eat before I vomit.